Debate with ideologists is not possible because of profound
differences with regard to all fundamental questions of human
existence. The ideologist's arguments are not rooted in reality
because he has overlaid it with a Second Reality. Rational
discourse fails because the two sides live in two modes of
existence: existence in truth and existence in untruth.

Corollary: The difficulties of debate concern the
fundamentals of existence. Even though debate with
ideologists is possible in the natural sciences, it does not
follow that it is possible in areas that are more central to
the person.

Points to be considered:

The nature of the breakdown

Its implications for the advancement of science

The methods of coping with the situation

First: the breakdown in historical perspective.

(I)

The Second Realities are fairly recent, growing since about
1500 to social and political dominance today. It is helpful to
examine the period when the first reality of existence was
unquestioned, as in St. Thomas' Summa Contra
Gentiles. Defending Christianity against the
Mohammedans, he said it was incumbent on the philosopher
to:

meditate on the truth

communicate it to others

refute the opposing falsehoods

Truth is achieved in the permanent struggle with preanalytic
notions of existence, as well as with incorrect analytic
conceptions. Debate is an essential element of existence. It is
a social enterprise.

What is this "truth of existence"? The terminology has been
updated from that used by Aquinas and Artistotle, but the
problem is the same. Next: how they expressed their problem of
truth.

(II)

Much of the symbolism of Aristotle and Aquinas deals with a
closed cosmos and is obsolete. But a core of truth can be
salvaged from their metaphysics, in two stages:

Remove the cosmological symbolisms. What remains is the
argument that intelligent beings cannot originate from a
first cause that is not intelligent.

Properly locate the prime mover by making explicit the
experiences which created the symbols of a divine being.
Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas did this, with the result that
both the symbols and the reality are much doubted and
misunderstood.

Examples of immediate experiences are anticlimatic in their
simplicity:

the experiences of finiteness and creatureliness in our
existence

of being "creatures of a day"

of being born and bound to die

of dissatisfaction with a state experienced as
imperfect

of apprehension of a perfection that is not in this world
but is the privilege of the gods

of possible fulfillment in a state beyond this world

etc...

For Plato, who understood the problems of existence well,
philosophy could be:

the practice of dying

the pull of the transcendent Good

the love of Wisdom that in its fullness is only
God's

etc...

Once the Platonic symbolism was established, philosophy became
unconvincing when it became an autonomous enterprise detached
from the motivating experiences.

(III)

Now we attempt an exegesis of existence as implied in
classic and scholastic metaphysics. Warning: new data will
emerge which will force us to start over again.

Human existence is illuminated by intellect, which is both
part of existence and the instrument of its interpretation.
Intellect also discovers itself as a force transcending its own
existence.

Simplifying Aristotle's argument, the intellect reaches out
to know:

Things of the external world.

In modern terminology, this is best represented by
Leibnitz's:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why is something the way it is rather than
otherwise?

Answers to these questions can be neither verified nor
falsified. The answers are less important than the
experience of the questions themselves. Men in the Second
Reality pretend the questions are illegitimate or
illusory.

Corollaries:

The analysis is valuable for classifying Second
Realities and their techniques, such as omission of
parts of the experience of existence.

Symbolisms providing answers are of less
importance, but still may be useful in protecting
against error, even if the answers must be revised
later. The danger is that the answers will become
"idols" detached from the original experience. The
reaction against the symbol will extend to reality
itself, destroying the order of existence.

Human actions.

Human action is rational and presumes an ultimate end,
because no one would pursue an infinite regress. Further,
without a limiting Good there would be no reason in the
world at large. This is founded on Aristotle's experience
that reason is embedded in order and that it is the
property of reason to have a limit. We have returned to the
original proposition that reason discovers itself as part
of human existence.

Corollary: Aristotle's argument is difficult for modern
readers because his "cause" is not "cause and effect" but
something more like "derivation". Possibly, modern
psychic disturbances are not caused by loss of the closed
cosmos, but rather by the loss of truth in existence.

New factors have been introduced into the problem of existence,
so we start again:

We previously said:

Man discovers his existence as illuminated from within by
intellect.

Intellect is the instrument of self-interpretation as
well as part of the structure interpreted.

Existence has noetic structure.

Intellect can transcend existence in various directions
in search of knowledge.

Now, in addition:

Man discovers himself as an existent among others.

He is not the maker of this field of existents.

Through illumination and transcendence, man finds himself in
the situation from which questions of the origin and end of
existence will arise.

Corollary: This description is more exact than Heidegger's
"flungness", which requires a "flinger" and introduces an
unnecessary construction.

Where is the origin and end of existence to be found? We must
interpret the phenomenon of questioning itself. To these
attributes of consciousness:

illumination

transcendence

we must add:

ideation, which

generalizes the discovered characteristics of
existence into a nature of existence

creates an idea of existence

arrives at the proposition that the origin and end of
existence are to be found in no existent thing

reason, which

determines that the origin and end of existence is to
be found beyond all existent things

This is the experiential basis of Aristotle's and Aquinas'
symbol of the "limit", and their argument that it is pointless
to seek for the origin and end of things in existence, through
an infinite regress.

Corollary: The analysis suggests a process in time, but this
is not true in reality where all the analytical steps are
known at once in preanalytic experience. The metaphysical
elaborations of Aristotle and Aquinas "prove" only what was
smuggled in with the premises, particularly in the symbol of
the "limit". That something "exists" (analogically speaking)
beyond existence is inherent in the noetic structure of
existence.

Truth of existence: the awareness of the fundamental structure
of existence together with the willingness to accept it as the
human condition. Untruth of existence: revolt against the human
condition and the attempt to overlay reality with a Second
Reality.

Corollary: This analysis deals only with the demonstrations
of classical and scholastic metaphysics, not with the whole
structure of existence.

(IV)

The truth of reality has been traced to its origin in the
noetic structure of existence. Now: back to the problem of
debate.

Every debate presumes a shared background of unquestioned
premises. Aquinas argued that one could not use the Scriptures
in arguing with the Mohammedans and pagans because they did not
accept them. One had to drop back to natural reason. He could
do that because his opponents accepted the classical
foundation, agreeing with him as to the noetic structure of
existence.

We can no longer presume this today even as to the
application of reason, because we do not share a community of
existence with the ideologists. Our duty to "debate" must take
the forms of:

a careful analysis of the noetic structure of
existence

an analysis of Second Realities, both with regard to
their constructs and to the motivating structure of existence
in untruth